John Carmack, creator of the classic PC game Doom, described working with Apple as a "rollercoaster ride," and suggested that company executives are not happy about the popularity of gaming on the iPhone and iPod touch.

In an interview with gaming website Kotaku, John Carmack revealed that top executives at Apple do not look fondly on the growing popularity of games on the iPod Touch and iPhone.

"At the highest level of Apple, in their heart of hearts," Carmack reportedly said, "they're not proud of the iPhone being a game machine, they wish it was something else."

Despite this sentiment, the iPod Touch has seen an increased push as a gaming machine by Apple advertising, calling the Touch "the funnest iPod ever." Apple has gone so far as to directly compare the iPhone/Touch platform to the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP hand held gaming systems, touting that the App store contained 21,179 gaming and entertainment titles versus 3,680 for the DS and 607 for the PSP.

Carmack believes the executives at Apple have had to embrace the iPhone/Touch as a gaming platform as a result of the overwhelming popularity that games have enjoyed at the App store. Apple executive John Geleynse was quoted earlier this year as saying "it's not a phone, it's a console experience."

AppleInsider recently reported that Japanese game maker Nintendo had seen profits nearly cut in half compared to last year, which many attribute to increased competition from the iPhone and iPod touch.

The iPhone/Touch has a distinct distribution advantage over the DS, which relies almost entirely on physical copies of games versus the App Store's entirely digital method of distribution. Furthermore, the average App Store game is in the $5 to $10 dollar range while the average DS game hovers closer to $30.

With more and more established console game companies such as Electronic Arts, id Software, and Konami making serous forays into App store gaming, it seems like the iPhone/Touch will continue to be major players in the world of handheld gaming, whether Apple likes it or not.

There was a recently drama shown here in the UK about the 8-bit computer wars of the 1980s, and particularly the rivarly between Sinclair and Acorn. The Sinclair Spectrum was the biggest selling computer of the era, largely due to gaming, but the head of Sinclair, Sir Clive Sinclair himself hated that fact.

It wouldn't surprise me if Jobs felt the same. Despite it's massive popularity gaming is still looked down upon my many people. Jobs may have wished the iPhone to just be a blackberry killer with a built in iPod. Instead, at least to some people, it's a Nintendo DS rival, with an iPod and a Blackberry built in.

Then again Jobs is as driven by a desire for profit as much as any other billionaire, so he may have already seen the light of gaming.

I could believe this. Wouldn't Apple have released a control pad if they really wanted it to succeed in gaming?

They could at least suggest a standard so third party accessory and case makers could build a single interface. Plus game makers need to feel comfortable programming for these so there's not like 5 of them out there that no one programs for, which is probably what'll happen eventually without some kind of leadership.

"At the highest level of Apple, in their heart of hearts," Carmack reportedly said, "they're not proud of the iPhone being a game machine, they wish it was something else."

Well what Apple can do is segregate the Top Selling Apps in the App Store by categories, that would help a lot.

Plus for the marvelous waste of $100 a month for a consumer level phone, I would be gaming on the thing myself to extract maximum value! Good thing I can't see the screen.

Games are a great time killer and fun. Just include a tray at the bottom of each iPhone to collect coins and a pull handle and you'll really rake in the profits.

I think Apple is just sore that they missed such a huge market by ignoring 3D gamers all these years because they had this complex of trying to be taken seriously all the time.

Poor Apple, they built a all purpose device and let the free market and consumers dictate what it was going to be and now they are moaning because they are making tons of money and people just want to escape the pressures of life, the economy and lack of jobs etc, by killing time playing games.

Hello Apple! Your a (impulsive) luxury consumer products company.

The danger is that we sleepwalk into a world where cabals of corporations control not only the mainstream devices and the software on them, but also the entire ecosystem of online services around...

John Carmack yaps a lot. He also tends to get more vocal when he doesn't get his way on something. Take anything he says with a grain of salt.

kotatsu, I don't agree with your statement about Jobs being driven by a desire for profit - I believe he is a control-freak and is driven by the desire to build devices that look and operate a certain way, and anything else is unacceptable - "I will build it my way, and if you don't like it, tough beans."

I think Apple execs are perfectly happy with the popularity of gaming on iPhone/Touch. At the same time I do think they would like to see more business purpose adoption with the platform. I think the slow uptake in businesses disappoints them, but I don't think they're disappointed by the games.

Poor Apple, they built a all purpose device and let the free market and consumers dictate what it was going to be and now they are moaning because they are making tons of money and people just want to escape the pressures of life, the economy and lack of jobs etc, by killing time playing games.

In your excitement to take a whack at Apple, you seem to have lost touch with reality. Exactly who at Apple is "moaning?" Not one person--at least not publicly. All we have is one game maker's word for it. And since when has Apple had a problem with making money?

Now, I won't say that Apple's grand plan included the iPhone as a gaming device, but they seem plenty happy with the fact now...

His comments don't make any sense since some of the first apps demo'd before the SDK was released were games. Apple actually sought out the early game developers. EA has often been at major keynotes of Apples. This is just nonsense.

His comments don't make any sense since some of the first apps demo'd before the SDK was released were games. Apple actually sought out the early game developers. EA has often been at major keynotes of Apples. This is just nonsense.

On top of that, over a year ago at the iPod Special Event they showed a commercial that was focused entirely on App Store games.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

John Carmack yaps a lot. He also tends to get more vocal when he doesn't get his way on something. Take anything he says with a grain of salt.

Carmack is a very intelligent guy, who is tremendously pragmatic and has few pets or favorites. He's not a vindictive turd, but rather a guy who has had so much success that he can speak his mind. If anything, he tends to be fairly reserved in his speech. Even when he's frustrated, he doesn't appear to try to blow things out of proportion. But he doesn't necessarily avoid treading on toes. The few times he's been critical of Apple, he's usually got his thumb right on it.

I think Apple execs are perfectly happy with the popularity of gaming on iPhone/Touch. At the same time I do think they would like to see more business purpose adoption with the platform. I think the slow uptake in businesses disappoints them, but I don't think they're disappointed by the games.

Apple is a consumer products company. ( a luxury impulsive one at that)

They do the opposite of what is expected in products for business users. (who think a lot before committing as they are trying to make money and extract the best option)

Look at the Droid, it's square and black, has a real keyboard, it doubles as a GPS with turn by turn, it doubles as a alarm clock when your charging. It has a removable battery and a real flash for the camera.

What and who is this targeted? The serious, no nonsense, male business traveler.

What is the iPhone (and most Apple's products) mostly targeted for?

Why is it that anything extra with the iPhone is a bolt on hassle? (it's because Apple makes great consumer devices that have some uses in the business environment with alterations, until something more dedicated arrives)

Why is it surprising the iPhone's most popular selling apps are games?

It's no surprise to me. If Apple wanted to make a business iPhone they could, at the sacrifice of their consumer one.

Business is about being serious and consumer is about having fun.

Hard to mix the two impressions.

The danger is that we sleepwalk into a world where cabals of corporations control not only the mainstream devices and the software on them, but also the entire ecosystem of online services around...

Luxury, impulse buy? Like a large screen TV?
I have made a living using Macs for over 20 years. I'm not sure you can say that about impulse, luxury buys.
Elegant, easy to use. Stable. Nicely designed. Enjoyable to work on. The interface, the hardware design and the structure of how they do what they do, have lead the industry since the Mac was introduced. You don't have to want to use one, you don't HAVE to use one, it's not forced on you as Windows is if you are unlucky enough to be in the belly of a corporate beast that is run by IT guys who know only Windows.
Buy to write it off using the thought process (or lack of) that you use is silly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MacTripper

Well what Apple can do is segregate the Top Selling Apps in the App Store by categories, that would help a lot.

Plus for the marvelous waste of $100 a month for a consumer level phone, I would be gaming on the thing myself to extract maximum value! Good thing I can't see the screen.

Games are a great time killer and fun. Just include a tray at the bottom of each iPhone to collect coins and a pull handle and you'll really rake in the profits.

I think Apple is just sore that they missed such a huge market by ignoring 3D gamers all these years because they had this complex of trying to be taken seriously all the time.

Poor Apple, they built a all purpose device and let the free market and consumers dictate what it was going to be and now they are moaning because they are making tons of money and people just want to escape the pressures of life, the economy and lack of jobs etc, by killing time playing games.

Carmack is a very intelligent guy, who is tremendously pragmatic and has few pets or favorites. He's not a vindictive turd, but rather a guy who has had so much success that he can speak his mind. If anything, he tends to be fairly reserved in his speech. Even when he's frustrated, he doesn't appear to try to blow things out of proportion. But he doesn't necessarily avoid treading on toes. The few times he's been critical of Apple, he's usually got his thumb right on it.

I don't really know anything about Carmack. You say he's mature and credible, but common sense and all the visible evidence says that Apple is plenty happy with their success with gamers. I for one would like to see more proof that he's believable. Show me some evidence from Apple itself that it's opposed to gaming.

The shiny screens on new Mac's and Apple Store locations are just further proof.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jwervel16

I thought impulse buying entailed paying less for quick product that turns out to be inferior. Silly me. I should have been buying Dells for all my video editing.

Impulsive sales occur at all stages of buying ability, it just happens more if it's less in price as more people can afford to be impulsive.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jwervel16

Kind of moot, considering you can natively run Windows on Macs. Thus, you can indeed enjoy shooting all the same 3D aliens.

Really, gaming was the last genuine bastion of the anti-Mac crowd. Bit for bit, they lose on everything else (including value, and resale in particular). What do they have left?

Most PC 3D gamers are interested in the least expensive, most expandable/customizable and most compatible software to play others online with.

Apple doesn't offer a sub $1000 expandable tower, thus few games and few graphic card upgrades. And also for the longest time Mac's didn't give up control of the hardware to game software like it did on Windows for the best performance. (Now Mac's can give up control of the OS to other OS's. It's a start)

So even if you got a cross platform 3D game, in the old days, on the Mac side it would run slower, because the OS didn't give up control of the hardware.

Of course this is all history now, as dedicated consoles 3D game much better and cheaper, look just as good as PC gaming. Lots of players online too.

And you get a up to 9 core and a BlueRay drive too in PS3's...

The danger is that we sleepwalk into a world where cabals of corporations control not only the mainstream devices and the software on them, but also the entire ecosystem of online services around...

Is it possible this Carrmack guy is just full of shit and making his statement up? I'm pretty sure apple is going to embrace anything that sells their product more... and coincidentally.. I don't really think they are struggling in the smart phone market.

Why not? Looks like it needs a controller accessory. They may not exist yet but the APIs for the 30-pin connector is there and there are even some prototypes on the net. I dont play such games so I dont pay too much attention to that market, but it seems to me if a child in this overly connected age of social media had a choice between a DS which is mainly for games or an iPod Touch, the likely answer is the Touch. Surely some cons with game play but perhaps enough pros to offset it.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

Luxury, impulse buy? Like a large screen TV?
I have made a living using Macs for over 20 years. I'm not sure you can say that about impulse, luxury buys.
Elegant, easy to use. Stable. Nicely designed. Enjoyable to work on. The interface, the hardware design and the structure of how they do what they do, have lead the industry since the Mac was introduced. You don't have to want to use one, you don't HAVE to use one, it's not forced on you as Windows is if you are unlucky enough to be in the belly of a corporate beast that is run by IT guys who know only Windows.
Buy to write it off using the thought process (or lack of) that you use is silly.

Well you and I fall both in the 20% of non-luxury/impulsive buyers then.

I have bought Mac's over the years because of their value and stability.

But the "new Apple" is clearly targeted at high foot traffic luxury locations with shiny, high lust factor devices.

Just look at their stores, glass steps? $30 for a simple charger that I can get online for $10?

And Apple wonders why the iPhone sells more games than anything else?

Perhaps back in the day of desktop publishing Apple Computer was more business oriented and saved companies money with their products, but now Apple Inc. is just chasing the luxury consumer market.

What I am surprised is that they are secretly upset the iPhone became just a gaming device. Like they didn't see it coming or something?

Perhaps if they did they would have owned the 3D gaming console market by now.

The danger is that we sleepwalk into a world where cabals of corporations control not only the mainstream devices and the software on them, but also the entire ecosystem of online services around...

I believe Carmack. It's quite easy to see that gaming ranks very low on the Apple list of priorities.

I had to buy and Xbox and recently a Windows 7 based pc in order to game even though I love the mac OS for everything else.

The most common reason I have heard from friends and acquaintances why they haven't purchased a mac is that you can't game well on one.

Just a quick response to this.. While its true that most gamers get a PC, I don't believe its for Mac's lack of ability to game (try call of duty 4 on an iMac and you'll see what I mean) It's because gaming companies generally don't make Mac versions of their games. The Mac computer market is only a fraction of the PC market, and a large majority of mac owners use the computers specifically for video editing, and recording music..

Why is it surprising the iPhone's most popular selling apps are games?

It's no surprise to me. If Apple wanted to make a business iPhone they could, at the sacrifice of their consumer one.

Business is about being serious and consumer is about having fun.

Hard to mix the two impressions.

You imply that gaming is at one end and business is at the other. I don't agree. When he talks about "highest levels" of Apple management, that can only mean one thing: Steve Jobs

And I am sure this is exactly the case. Jobs loves design, art, music, and simple but powerful software and hardware. The Mac was never a gaming machine, nor was the Apple II for that matter. It's not in his DNA.

Of course he's not going to throw away a major revenue stream, but it certainly was not his original vision. Too many games have crappy, cheesy, corny visuals, loud colors and awful fonts. Jobs probably can't stand games like that.

Business is about being serious and consumer is about having fun.

This exactly the opposite of Job's worldview. To him, business is about having fun. You can have fun in your job. In fact, he has said you should have fun in your job.

Apple hasn't stayed (somewhat) away from the enterprise market because they don't care about it. The problem has been that that market is structured in such a way that user experience is almost always ignored, because the buyer is almost never the user, so enterprise UI is usually horrid. This is starting to change.

Wow, I wouldn't want to work for you, or even with you. Maybe you're in the wrong business. If it's not fun, what's the point? But, then, I don't subscribe to the "life is miserable, then you die" philosophy.

Sorry, but I don't see it that way. The Mac platform is weak on games not because of Apple, but because of circumstances (namely minority market share) beyond their control. Game developers don't develop heavily for the Mac platform because it's not cost effective for them. In contrast, game developers do develop heavily for the iPod Touch platform because it is cost-effective for them.

I can only speculate here, but I believe that if Steve Jobs could snap his fingers and cause the game developers and their customers to immediately embrace his the Mac, he'd do it in a heartbeat. I suppose gaming has never been the top priority of Apple, but that doesn't make them anti-game. I think Apple desires platform supremacy across most if not all users, but that's easier said than done.

Except that the gaming element is one of the key driving forces of iPhone, and is heavily promoted (publicly) by Apple.

The iPhone does *everything.* As it should. and it does a damn good job. No reason for Apple to have a problem with this. Its perfectly in line with the consumer market strategy for the iPhone.

Unless of course, the whole gaming scenario is what might be holding the iPhone back from significant enterprise adoption.

The rest of the time, the gaming is a plusl and has paid off handsomely.

I'm not sure how much truth there is to Carmack's ideas.

You know it is possible some people, even some people at Apple might think that gaming is holding back [insert your favorite platform here] from business adoption. But I don't think that is the case for Apple or any company, and here's why:

Taking a look at Microsoft, we see that (unfortunately) Windows has become the largest, most powerful gaming platform in the industry, but that certainly has not deterred Windows from being adopted by businesses.

No, I think, in Apple's case for sure, it's the same ongoing problem the Mac has suffered... You have IT people that completely refuse to try anything made by Apple (or other companies/products too), with no rational reasoning. You also have Apple, while good at lots of things, does not take the business market seriously. And you also have the business practices MS employs where they schmooze the CEOs of corporations and convince them to buy any MS flavor of crap of the month (like Sharepoint).

John Carmack yaps a lot. He also tends to get more vocal when he doesn't get his way on something. Take anything he says with a grain of salt.

kotatsu, I don't agree with your statement about Jobs being driven by a desire for profit - I believe he is a control-freak and is driven by the desire to build devices that look and operate a certain way, and anything else is unacceptable - "I will build it my way, and if you don't like it, tough beans."

I think Apple execs are perfectly happy with the popularity of gaming on iPhone/Touch. At the same time I do think they would like to see more business purpose adoption with the platform. I think the slow uptake in businesses disappoints them, but I don't think they're disappointed by the games.

I would still take your line of comment a bit further. I can't see anything in Jobs that he has done, just so it would make him rich. Look at what the guy has said over the last 25 years; look at what the guy has done over the last 25 years. None of it has any earmarks of being driven by profit. Profit is the byproduct.
Do what you do, the absolutely best you possibly can do it, and the profits will come.
That's the only ways these guys could do what they do. Apple's product doesn't work on any other level.
Oh, and by the way; this is also the definition of a "niche".

John Carmack, creator of the classic PC game Doom, described working with Apple as a "rollercoaster ride," and suggested that company executives are not happy about the popularity of gaming on the iPhone and iPod touch.

Ouch!!

Isn't the iPod Touch Apple's gaming device according to the master SJ? Apple's customers have told them that. And he concurs and only granted the Touch a speed bump for that very reason? No camera- it's a gaming device!
I'm still waiting for all the gaming accessories as well- where are they?